Tarsands Infrastructure: South/East [US] is a category that represents the many connecting and supplying pipelines and associated projects that are needed to transport fuels for the production of tar sands bitumen and to move tar sand heavy bitumen to the Lower 48 of the US for refining. This involves some massive new pipeline projects to Illinois, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Louisiana, California, Pennsylvania, Texas and elsewhere including existing refineries in Ontario and Quebec.
Though the category is labelled "US", the proposed new projects also traverse untouched Canadian territory across Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The names of some of the larger ones include The Alberta Clipper Project, The Spearhead Pipeline (expansion) and the Keystone Pipeline, along with other pipelines controlled by TransCanada and Enbridge, as well as Imperial Oil. Despite the massive size and scale of pipeline networks already existing through the continental United States, these pipelines and associated construction would be needed to achieve US and Canadian government goals of reaching 5 million barrels a day of tar sand oil being shipped out of the tar sands "ground zero" of Alberta.
BP Lake Michigan Oil Spill: Did Tar Sands Spill into the Great Lakes?
By Steve Horn
Global Research, March 28, 2014
Is it conventional crude or tar sands? That is the question. And it’s one with high stakes, to boot.
The BP Whiting refinery in Indiana spilled between 470 and 1228 gallons of oil (or is it tar sands?) into Lake Michigan on March 24 and four days later no one really knows for sure what type of crude it was. Most signs, however, point to tar sands.
Energy East no boon for refiners: report
By Lauren Krugel — CP — Mar 18 2014
CALGARY - The proposed Energy East pipeline won't be the boon to Eastern Canadian refineries that supporters claim because the vast majority of the oil in it would be bound for export markets, environmental groups argued in a report released Tuesday.
TransCanada's Energy East Pipeline for Export, With Little Return for Canadians
OTTAWA, March 18, 2014 /CNW/ - A new report shows that nearly all of the 1.1 million barrels a day of crude oil the proposed Energy East pipeline would carry would be exported unrefined. The report, TransCanada's Energy East Pipeline: For Export, Not Domestic Gain, shows eastern Canadian refineries would process only a small amount of crude from Energy East, given that they already rely substantially on two other North American sources, with a third source imminent.
Tar sands threat moves closer
By DEIRDRE FULTON | March 14, 2014
In the wake of a troubling decision by Canadian officials, anti-tar-sands activists are urging US Senator Susan Collins to join the rest of Maine’s Congressional delegation in calling for a new Presidential Permit should the Portland Pipe Line Corporation seek to reverse the flow in its own pipeline, which would open the valve to pump tar sands all the way from Canada to Casco Bay.
Oil Sands Pipeline Coming to North Dakota
March 18, 2014 by Alisha Mims •
The largest crude oil pipeline project in the state of North Dakota is getting closer to becoming a reality. Enbridge Energy’s Sandpiper Pipeline Project, also called the Northern Gateway project, would carry oil sands bitumen from Alberta, Canada’s Bakken Shale to the British Columbia coast. Enbridge recently announced plans to make the pipeline operational by 2016.
Keystone pipeline may be headed for further delay
By Tom Cohen, CNN
Wed February 26, 2014
Washington (CNN) -- A debate of more than five years could stretch even longer with Wednesday's call for a health study on the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada.
Two Democratic senators -- Barbara Boxer of California and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island -- urged Secretary of State John Kerry to examine higher rates of cancer and other illness reported in places impacted by the "tar sands" oil from northern Alberta.
Keystone Protest Held; URI Divestment Possible
By TIM FAULKNER/ecoRI News staff
Another Enbridge pipeline proposed for Canadian tar sands oil
Duluth News Tribune
By: John Myers
March 4, 2014
Enbridge Energy said today it plans to build yet another new oil pipeline into the Northland, on top of two expansion projects already in the works.
Enbridge said it would end service of its aged Line No. 3 from Alberta to Superior and replace it with a larger capacity line to bring northwestern Canadian oil into the U.S.
13 Towns Pass Anti-Tar Sands Resolutions
VPR
By Amy Kolb Noyes
Voters in Albany, Barton, Glover, Hartland, Jay, Richmond, Sheffield, Shelburne, Stannard, Stafford, Sutton, Westmore, and Wheelock passed anti-tar sands resolutions at Town Meeting this year.
The issue was also on the Town Meeting warning in Burke, but voters there decided to table a vote after some discussion.
Oil’s new Arctic passage to Europe
Jeffrey Jones
Calgary — The Globe and Mail
Aug. 15 2013
As some of the biggest players in Canada’s oil industry fight for proposals to move the product west, south and east, a new plan is emerging to move crude north.
Omnitrax Inc., a private U.S. company that owns Churchill, Man.’s port, may provide a new channel for moving crude to markets on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.
